Roxane Gay said this week that she has
pulled a book deal with Simon & Schuster in response to the
publisher's decision to work with Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

In a statement given to BuzzFeed, Gay
said that she could not in good conscience work with Simon &
Schuster because they had given Yiannopoulos a platform to spread his
“inelegant hate.”

“I was supposed to turn the book in
this month and I kept thinking about how egregious it is to give
someone like Milo a platform for his blunt, inelegant hate and
provocation,” Gay said. ”I just couldn’t bring myself to turn
the book in. My editor emailed me last week and I kept staring at
that email in my inbox and finally over the weekend I asked my agent
to pull the book.”

“And to be clear, this isn’t about
censorship. Milo has every right to say what he wants to say, however
distasteful I and many others find it to be. He doesn’t have a
right to have a book published by a major publisher but he has, in
some bizarre twist of fate, been afforded that privilege. So be it.
I’m not interested in doing business with a publisher willing to
grant him that privilege. I am also fortunate enough to be in a
position to make this decision. I recognize that other writers aren’t
and understand that completely,” she
added.

Yiannopoulos, 23, has been called a
spokesperson for the alt-right, which he denies. While gay, he has
called gay rights detrimental to humanity and is opposed to marriage
equality. Last year, Twitter permanently banned Yiannopoulos for
“inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of
others.”

Gay, who is bisexual, said that she
does not have a new publisher for her book How To Be Heard but
hopes it will be published in the future.